I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. That is exactly why we needed to test in Committee the consequences of the changes that his amendment would make. That would have allowed us to hear a fuller explanation from the Government of the consequences. I hope I am proved wrong by the Minister and that he will give us an extensive explanation of the potential impact of the amendments. I would
want clarification of the consequences where an individual involved in an accident might be over the limit through medication but would not be at fault for the accident itself. I welcome rather belatedly the bauble that the hon. Gentleman wishes to add to the Bill and I look forward to the Minister’s response to it.
Amendment 2 reflects the Opposition’s concerns about the implications of the Bill for the laws on drug-driving. We welcome the proposals to make driving while under the influence of illegal drugs against the law. I am disappointed not to see in the Chamber the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), given the work that he has done on the issue on behalf of his constituent, Lillian Groves. We know that drug-driving will be a substantial offence. We know from the Government’s impact assessment that more than 2,000 people will be affected by the new provision.
As the Minister told the Committee, although it may not be on a scale comparable to drink-driving, it is important that we close the gap that drug-driving has created. However, there is no point in having a power if one cannot put it into practice. Amendment 2 requires the Government to ensure, through an impact assessment, that the clause can be enacted across the country. That will entail looking at the equipment, training and resources that the Home Office, the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service have to enable them to implement the law.
Those concerns reflect the debates we had in Committee, when the Government were simply unable to explain what work they had done to ensure that the potential new offence could in fact be prosecuted. We had a number of questions about the logistics of rolling out this policy across the country. With that in mind, I want to ask the Minister a series of questions, which I hope he will answer when he responds.
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First and foremost, the key issue is how well equipped our police forces are to address that new crime. The Home Office’s own briefing states:
“For the most effective enforcement of the new offence, the police will be assisted by the availability of reliable drug testing devices.”
We certainly concur. We all know that the provision of breathalysers makes drink-driving a much clearer and simpler offence to prosecute because evidence can be gathered. The hon. Member for Croydon Central argued strongly in Committee about the importance of the police having the appropriate equipment to deal with the crime.
However, alcohol testing is very different from drug substance testing; alcohol testing requires a test for a single substance, but drug testing will inevitably involve tests for a range of substances, and indeed of a range of substances to find the substance. We already know that the testing equipment will have to be approved by the Home Office. At present, only one item, which tests for cannabis use via an oral saliva swab, has been approved. Indeed, several police forces have reported that they do not have that technology at the moment. When my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) went to see the new machinery in her constituency, she found that they had only one machine, that it needed a full room and that police officers had to wait a full hour before they could access it.
We already know that police forces do not necessarily have the technology to deal with just one aspect of drug-driving. If there is more than one substance they need to test for, do they have all the equipment they need to be able to test for that wide range of substances? Fortunately, the Policing and Criminal Justice Minister, in response to a parliamentary question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), proved otherwise when he said:
“Once manufactured and type approved, decisions on the number and type of devices to purchase are also operational decisions for chief officers as they will know what best meets their individual force needs.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2013; Vol. 559, c. 116W.]
We have recently seen the expert panel report, which details the sorts of tests the police would be expected to perform and the types of substances they would be expected to test for. It is clear that it is much more complex than testing for drink-driving, so the types of machinery and equipment that the police will need will be much more complex. Indeed, the question of whether a single machine, such as a breathalyser, could be produced to test for every drug that the expert panel has suggested should be tested for is one that I hope the Minister will answer.
Above all, that raises a series of questions about the cost implications for our police forces. We know that police forces are investing in some of that technology. For example, Essex police are investing in the tests for cannabis, but whether they will be able to buy a machine that tests for all drugs is clearly a question of value for money. For the Home Office simply to say that that is a matter for the police to decide is not an appropriate way to proceed, given the importance of getting the offence right.
For example, will the police be able to test for legal highs? I am aware that the expert panel does not think that there is sufficient evidence at present on the impairment generated for a driver, but were that evidence test to change, would the police then have to buy a subsequent set of equipment to be able to deal with that, and what would be the consequences for their budgets? I think that the Minister needs to give us much more information about what he has done to ensure that when this becomes law our police have the equipment they need to deal with every drug that might impair driving. As the Institute of Advanced Motorists has pointed out, unlike alcohol, which is just one drug, the number and range of drugs that can impair someone’s driving is almost incalculable. Designing a piece of machinery that will deal with all of them will prove extremely difficult.
The Opposition want more evidence that the Government have really thought that through so that we do not see people being let down by the inability of the police to deal with particular substances. Indeed, it is not just about being able to test for difference substances; the way different substances are metabolised within people’s systems will also play a part in the effectiveness of the offence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) argued in Committee, we need to know the level of drugs that will be likely to result in a prosecution. Will it be equivalent to current levels for alcohol and drink-driving offences? What work has been done to show that comparable tests can be achieved?
We welcome the belated publication of the expert panel document, which gives some detail on that, but the question of the ways in which different individuals
metabolise different drugs will be key to the success of the offence. In particular, we know that co-codamol, which we discussed at length in Committee, can, like heroin, be metabolised in some people’s systems. Questions about how different drugs will be treated and tested are key to the Bill’s enactment, but the Minister admitted in Committee:
“At the moment, I cannot give the Committee the relevant levels. It is difficult for me to defend work that does not yet exist and it is difficult for us to debate it”.––[Official Report, Crime and Courts Public Bill Committee, 7 February 2013; c. 389.]
Ministers have admitted that they do not know what they will be testing for, we do not know whether the police have the necessary equipment to test for it, and the expert panel has set out a wide range of potential tests that might need to be taken.
That leads us to the question of whether the police will be able to gather the appropriate evidence. A response to another parliamentary question tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn revealed that no assessment has been made of the training required by police forces to be able to undertake roadside drug testing. This is a critical issue, because the expert panel itself has pointed out that the most effective evidence on drug offences is gathered at the roadside. The question of whether blood and urine samples will be tested at the roadside will also be a key issue for how the police manage the system. As the expert panel points out, it is widely acknowledged that blood and, to a lesser degree, oral fluids are most likely to give the most accurate measurement of drugs currently active in the system. Potential prosecutions may rest on whether a substance was in somebody’s system at the time an offence was committed, so accurate evidence is vital.
This is a problem, therefore, not just for our police, but for our courts. As a result of my right hon. Friend’s sterling work in asking parliamentary questions, we have uncovered the fact that the courts do not have the relevant training to deal with questions about differences in metabolism and equipment or to interpret the evidence. That is why we have tabled the amendment to push the Government to be much clearer on how we can all make sure that this particular offence is dealt with successfully. We do not know how the equipment will be developed, how much it will cost or its source. We do not know whether police budgets will be able to extend to the range of equipment they will need, or whether the police will be given appropriate training to collect the necessary samples in the right manner to secure a successful prosecution. It is not unreasonable for Parliament to continue to ask those questions.
I hope that the Minister will not only say that he supports our amendment and the intention behind it, but provide much more detail. In particular, will the Government accept in full the guidelines suggested by the expert panel? Have the Government made provision to ensure that police forces throughout the country are able to purchase the necessary equipment and that they will be able to future-test those purchases when new evidence becomes available about the impact of different drugs as our experience and understanding of issues such as legal highs develops? The amendment seeks to probe the Government to ensure that, at this late stage, they have done more of the homework that we all want to see so that the offence is recognised and families of people such as Lillian Groves can take comfort that Parliament is listening to their concerns.
In conclusion, I want to speak briefly to amendments 89 and 90. We all enjoyed the opportunity provided in Committee to discuss our favourite insults—whether they be the work of Nye Bevan or Winston Churchill—and, naturally, to repeat them and direct them at each other. However, I want to put on record that the amendments and our concerns about section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 are based on serious worries about its potential impact, particularly on minority communities. We agreed with the Government’s decision not to overturn the other place’s decision to remove the word “insulting” from section 5 on the basis of evidence provided by the Director of Public Prosecutions that all the cases brought so far could have been prosecuted without taking that word into consideration. Nevertheless, concerns have been raised by a number of groups, particularly Stonewall, which points out that 88% of incidents of homophobic abuse that many of the people it represents have experienced involved insults, abuse and harassment. Many of us are also concerned about the Government’s management of debates such as that on the “Innocence of Muslims” film.
There is no such evidence for the changes that the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) wishes to make. I urge him to look again at the distinctions between sections 4 and 4A and section 5 of the 1986 Act, particularly with regard to the role that insults may play in incitement to violence. Given the distinction identified by the Crown Prosecution Service, we are not convinced that the same sort of evidence exists to remove the word “insulting” from sections 4 and 4A as that to remove it form section 5. The Crown Prosecution Service is clear that these are two very different elements of offence. There are different conditions under which sections 4 and 4A of the 1986 Act would be brought forward. I note in particular the number of prosecutions that involve racial or religious harassment that have been brought forward under section 4A.
I urge caution on the hon. Member for Bury North in believing that the issues with the use of the word “insulting” in section 5, which clearly precludes disruptive behaviour, can be translated into sections 4 and 4A in the way that he has tried to do. I urge the Government to exercise extreme caution in considering whether to make such a move and in responding to amendments 89 and 90.
I look forward to the Minister’s response and to a full explanation of just how he will make the offence of drug-driving a reality in this country in the years ahead.